Slightly OT: anyone using the Dual Ethernet’s for twice the fun….i mean throughput?

[Mark Raudonis]

Bob,

I don’t think that’s what Apple had in mind when they installed dual ethernet ports on the new machines. On our X-SAN system we have dual ports on all of our G-5’s. The two ports are used to access two separate ethernet networks. One is a a “private” network dedicated to meta data and only goes to the SAN controller. The second network is the “public” network and is connected to the outside world (internet). So for us, the dual ports enable us to be “two places at once”, but this is not a “bandwidth” play since the heavy lifting is done via fibre. We also DO have clients connected to the san via gig-e only, but that is a single connection only.

My guess is that what you’re thinking of won’t work. On a network, a computer must have a unique ID number (192.168.10.27 for example). If you’re reaching out to two separate networks using two different switches, this number can be the same. But if you’re trying to hit the same drive set via two different paths employing the same ID number, I think you’re guaranteed to cause confusion.

Perhaps someone with a greater understanding of network connectivity can chime in here, but I don’t think this will work.

Mark

[Bob Flood]

thanx mark

you said :

One is a a “private” network dedicated to meta data and only goes to the SAN controller. The second network is the “public” network and is connected to the outside world (internet).

that sounds like part of the reason ie you could keep your machine off the “public” network and internet and pc’s, but keep all the apple machines connected at the same time.

bee eph

[Chris Borjis]

I’m an I.T. person and I’ve not heard of that.

Gigabit is great! 10 Gigabit is just around the corner.

[Chris Borjis]

I’ve not heard of that.

Gigabit is great!

10 Gigabit is just around the corner.

[Sean Oneil]

[Bob Flood] “just wondering if its possible to utilize both of the gigabit e-net connections on the mac pro’s simultaneously for accessing media on a NAS or a server? or even between 2 mac pro machines? kind of a poor mans shared storage?

I did a search at apple for dual ethernet, and all i got was specs on machines, and basic how to info (like how to connect to the internet)

if anyone knows any resources please point me that way?”

Yes Bob, I have done this. I’m not an IT person so it was a LOT of research and work learning about it. The guys at Small Tree Communications are a great resource for this kind of thing.

Combining NICs is known by several names- bonding, pairing, etc. There are a lot of different methods to do this and they all have unique aspects. Adaptive Load Balancing is one. Static Link Aggregation is another.

Mac OS X natively only supports one of these methods. It’s called 802.3ad Dynamic Link Aggregation (or LACP). To set it up in OS X, it’s very simple. Go to Network settings in system prefs and select “Show: Network Port Configurations”. Then click “New” and you have the ability to select the NICs you want to join together and select “Link Aggregation”.

Aside from the NAS, you need to have a managed network switch that specifically supports 802.3ad Dynamic Link Aggregation (LACP). They’re not the cheap ones. The cheapest I found was Dell’s PowerConnect series. And it’s not easy to set it up. And Dell tech support from India aren’t going to be any help with this kind of thing.

Also keep in mind that you won’t get a single 2Gbps link. You get two 1Gbps links if that makes sense. So if you copy one file it’s 1Gbps. If you copy two files (or playback two streams), you get 2Gbps. Hope that makes sense.

I use it for our SAN. I’m running sort of a homemade iSCSI server and for the clients I’m using MetaSAN and ATTO’s XtendSAN for the iSCSI initiator.

Anyway, it’s a lot of work. I’d wait for 10gb if possible.